Her Pen Pal

Victoria's is a wedding planner. And of course she is planning the wedding of one of her best friends, which turns out to be in Paris, France. Once there, she remembers her pen pal from school, a french guy called Jacques, whom she dated for a while before meeting the now ex boyfriend of 12 years who just broke up with her.

My main complain is that if you are gonna have a French character, you should have a French actor. Yes, I can excuse a Canadian playing an American but and English playing a French? Not cool.

I actually loved the story, there were no major plot holes. Cliches? Yes we have a lot of them: we have two friends/exes reconnecting, a jealous ex boyfriend, nosy friends and misunderstandings, so it's your typical Hallmark movie. So you may wonder what makes this a good one? Firstly, Mallory and Joshua had passable chemistry (I forgot they worked together on Galavant, a TV show I watched) and of course, the location. We see a few typical spots of France (and if you pay attention you may see a few people with masks and even the police/security while they were filming)

I would have loved to watch a flashfoward tho, to see how the characters were doing (or maybe they are planning a second movie, which I will gradly watch). . For a second movie, however, I would get rid of the ex boyfriend and bring more diverse characters/actors. The movie didn't drive me crazy but I enjoyed it.

Premise and some of the developments are typical. The ex was pathetic.

There were some laughs and good dialogue early on, but the ending, though pretty much the usual, disappointed me for lack of anything special.

Views of Paris were nice including some places I wasn't familiar with, but were the actors shot live in all those spots or was it green screen? If it was real, it didn't look right a couple times.

The leads mostly had chemistry.

It follows the Hallmark movie format to the tee. So why give it an 8? Paris, France and the leads are good.

I do have one gripe and that is the movie set up Victoria's backstory beautifully but failed miserably with the male lead. I mean come on, the dude is a square jawed handsome wealthy dude with perfect manners - Hallmark gave us...well he was traveling so he put off relationships for 15 years. I don't think so - come on writers give us something even 1% believable and we are good to go.

I enjoyed this Hallmark film more than I expected to. It may be the place I am in my life, where I am questioning my career choice and the hamster wheel I have been on since I was 16 years old...but this film really struck a chord with me. I agree with the advice to slow down, walk with no destination and enjoy the life that is right before us. Of course it didn't hurt that it was set with a gorgeous backdrop (I am not a Francofile, so take that at face value), and had an interesting back story of the two main characters being former pen pals who shared their most intimate secrets. But the kicker had to be the breathtaking estate!

This was a surprisingly mature film that tackled a very topical concept involving examining what we are working so hard for and what we are missing out on during that road to "success". It's heart however is a romance between two former pen pals who have fallen out of touch. Our main character is a very successful wedding planner who has come to Paris to put on one of her best friend's wedding. Only while there she discovers that the wedding she planned, as magical as it is, lacked all of the personal touches that would have made it the right wedding for her friend...so mid-celebration, with a little help from her former pen pal, she changes the wedding into the perfect wedding for her friend and in the process discovers some things about herself.

I recommend giving this film a watch, hallmark fan or not.

P. S. I have never seen the show Gallavant which stars the two main characters...maybe I will have to check that out as well.

The plot had some "Huh?" moments, but it was noticeably better than most plots in this genre. I really appreciated that there were some genuine obstacles and hard feelings rather than the usual silly misunderstandings. I also appreciated that they invested some money and care into the settings rather than scraping the bottom of the barrel with their budget.

All in all, worth watching.